The Sooners have ranked near the bottom of the Big 12 in attendance in recent years. That’s not likely to change when OU lands in the SEC.

NORMAN — Porter Moser cares deeply about attendance. Since he arrived in 2021, the Sooners’ men’s basketball coach has been willing to go any lengths to boost it. 

Take last week for example.

Lloyd Noble Center’s $2 beer stands are some of the most popular concessions inside OU’s basketball arena. Yet during the Sooners’ Jan. 6 conference opener, there were more thirsty fans than beer stands to serve them all. Lines wrapped around the arena’s concourses throughout the Sooners’ 71-63 win over Iowa State.

Afterward, fans let Moser know about the long waits on social media. Before the Sooners’ next home tip, he made sure to do something about it. 

“There’s going to be more beer stands at the game tomorrow so people don’t have to worry about $2 beers having to wait in line — hopefully,” Moser said before last week’s visit from West Virginia. “Always trying to do what we can do to get the big crowds into Lloyd Noble.”

Only 6,835 fans showed up to see the Sooners beat the Mountaineers and the beer stands held up fine. But OU fans are steadily responding to Moser’s efforts and (more crucially) to the improved product on the floor in 2023-24 as the 11th-ranked Sooners play host to Texas on Tuesday (6 p.m. ESPN).

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OU posted an average home attendance of 5,995 across eight non-conference games this season, up from 5,125 in 2022-23. The 11,333 on hand for the win over Iowa State marked a season-high and would have ranked as the Sooners’ third-best home crowd last season. 

On Tuesday, when the Sooners (15-3, 3-2 Big 12) host the Longhorns (13-5, 3-2), Moser and Co. should be playing in front of the biggest home crowd yet this season.

“The people who come to this building have been great, but just the more, the better, man,” Moser said Monday afternoon. “Strength in numbers. I hope this thing is packed to the roof.”

The next time the Sooners and Longhorns meet here it’ll be a clash of SEC rivals. But the occasion of Texas’ last Big 12 visit beckons a question: how will their men’s basketball attendance fit in their new conference?

Figures in recent seasons suggest that the Longhorns, bolstered by the recently constructed Moody Center, are right on par with their soon-to-be SEC foes. However, OU — which finished ninth in Big 12 attendance last season — is set to fall even further behind starting next season.

The numbers

Lloyd Noble Center holds an official capacity of 11,562. More than 13,200 packed the arena last February when inclement weather prompted OU to offer free admission for a visit from Oklahoma State. The crowd of 13,490 that showed up for a 2013 win over No. 5 Kansas remains the arena’s record.

The issue OU faces in terms of men’s basketball attendance is crowd consistency. 

Since the start of the 2018-19 season, OU’s per game average in men’s basketball attendance sits at 7,668, excluding the Covid-19-limited 2020-21 campaign. Only once over that span — in 2018-19 — have the Sooners eclipsed 8,500 fans per game. The low of 6,919 per game in that timeframe came in Moser’s debut season in 2021-22.

Those numbers have routinely kept OU in the bottom half in home attendance across the Big 12. The Sooners’ per game crowd of 7,105 ranked ninth in the league ahead of only TCU (6,192) last season as OU sputtered to a 15-17. Among the four conference newcomers this year, the Sooners fared better than only UCF (5,274) in home attendance in 2022-23.

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Compared to the SEC, where average attendance across the league stood at 13,450 last season, the gap only grows wider.

The league-wide composition of SEC men’s basketball attendance begins with Kentucky and Tennessee, a pair of programs that routinely draw crowds near and above 20,000 per game. Arkansas (capacity: 19,200) and Auburn (capacity: 9,121) record consistent sellouts. Elsewhere across the conference, eight other programs reported an average attendance of 8,000 or better in the 2022-23 season.

Up against its future conference rivals, OU would have ranked dead last in attendance last year. 

The future

In the SEC, the Sooners intend to compete with the league’s very best next season. In attendance, the program will be hoping to simply climb past Ole Miss (average attendance of 7,209 in 2022-23) and Mississippi State (7,674).

Texas, meanwhile, should slot comfortably into the upper tier of SEC attendance next season. 

The Longhorns have reported 10,344 fans per game since 2018-19 and would have ranked sixth in the SEC last season at 10,550. In the program’s second year inside the new arena in Austin, Texas is charting an even sharper attendance clip at 10,647 per game. 

On the floor, Moser has the Sooners looking SEC-ready. In attendance, OU will have some work to do to catch up in its new conference home.

How much does that matter? Does the context of a conference backdrop even matter in terms of attendance?

Moser hasn’t quite let his mind drift there yet. 

“My feet are right here,” he said Monday. “I haven’t even thought about the context of playing Texas (or in the SEC) in the future. That’s just completely honest.”

Clear over his three seasons is that attendance is a central piece in the program Moser hopes to build. 

Moser has met with fraternities and sororities. He’s hand-delivered pizza to students before games. In Dec. 2021, he promised free tickets for students to all remaining home games. This season, he got 3,593 to pour into McCasland Field House for a student-only game against UAPB.

“It was everything I envisioned, but we gotta stack it,” Moser said afterward “That’s my message to them — let’s do this over at the LNC.”

OU has not released recent student attendance figures. But students made up a significant contingent of the 6,835 on hand for the first game in the new semester against West Virginia last week. Moser expects another impressive student crowd on Tuesday night.

“The students have been great,” he said. “Man, did they come out against West Virginia.”

Moser’s success rallying student turnout is also an indication that the Sooners are running their race. Building interest and attendance in Norman will remain a battle regardless of conference; the challenge will be the same hosting South Carolina and Vanderbilt as it is when Texas Tech, BYU and UCF come to town.

Attendance will hinge on the team on the court, not a conference affiliation.

Still, as the Sooners prepare to make their SEC move and continue their years-long pursuit of a new arena in Norman, the numbers and their realities are worth chewing on. 

While speaking on improved home attendance at OU, Moser gave a nod to the crowds the Sooners night in, night out across the Big 12. Best believe him and his team take notice. 

“We know what we got to face every night out in this league on the road,” he said.

It won’t be any different in the SEC.